Personally, they should just go ham and dial up the animeness to 11. CS IV went full Harem so just embrace what it was meant to be. Then, whether it only goes through the first game or all of them it can shown to be an alternate dimension. That or make it a Dorthee fanfiction where all the male characters are gay for each other. 

Really, an anime series of all the games once they are done could be interesting, but no company is going to go through the actual effort to convert the games to even something resembling good, since a lot of stuff would have to be cut or scenarios rewritten to make sure proper information is given. Not planning on watching this, but look forward to reactions of the eventual release.

Posted by: @trailsofpersona

Really, an anime series of all the games once they are done could be interesting, but no company is going to go through the actual effort to convert the games to even something resembling good, since a lot of stuff would have to be cut or scenarios rewritten to make sure proper information is given. Not planning on watching this, but look forward to reactions of the eventual release.

I plan on it, and will probably do a compare and contrast to the OVA adaptation of SC depending on how things work out. I suspect this project can't possibly do a worse job than the Trails in the Sky OVA did of adapting a game so at least the bar is low. That said if the results are as good as the Ys I-II OVA (which expanded on some things and tweaked others to make a more interesting story) then I'll consider it a success.

Bonus points if they use the opportunity to work in Akatsuki material, since Kondo has said Falcom is considering ways they might do it and that game takes place in parallel to the events of CS1.

That or make it a Dorthee fanfiction where all the male characters are gay for each other. 

Don't give them ideas... ;p

I would totally watch that.

Well, it's been delayed until next year. Did we know this was going to be set during the Northern War? At any rate, I think I prefer this and getting to see something we only ever heard about, than just getting a retelling of one the CS games that would inevitably be truncated and rushed. It'll be interesting to see if the protag of this ever shows up/gets referenced in the future.

Previous announcements just said it was going to be 'based on Cold Steel' so we didn't have any specifics. Focusing on something that was an offscreen story's probably a better approach than trying to adapt a game directly. The actual war was pretty much a one-sided squash but there's enough material to build a story on. Whether it'll be particularly good or not is anyone's guess still, but the director they've picked does have one credit to his name (in that role) that I'm familiar with and it's the Japanese-French coproduction that adapted Valerian et Laureline, which did a decent job of taking its source material and doing something different with it. So let's see what he does with this material.

As far as original character showing up in later games, depends on if Falcom wants this project to be considered canon or not. Ring of Judgment basically created Tilia and Kai (and to a slightly lesser extent Toval) long before they appeared in games, so it's not impossible. I imagine it will depend on what sort of person they are and whether they're interesting enough for Falcom to want to reference them again/for in-universe characters to have a reason to reference them or for them to have a reason to show up. Falcom is certainly fine with continuing to reference North Ambria and give us new details about the place even after the focus has shifted eastwards.

We've finally got a look at what the MC looks like.

It's kinda giving me some Valkyria Chronicles vibes, but that's probably because of the tank. She better hope she doesn't get anywhere in the vicinity of Rean's gravitational pull, though.

Haha, I'm glad I'm not the first person who thought that. She's also definitely giving off the Northern Jaeger vibe with that armor.

The official site updated with a short trailer and profiles of the main characters.

Lavian Winslet is our protagonist, the granddaughter of a hero of North Ambria who later betrayed it. She prefers to keep to herself, showed incredible natural talent and an ability to quickly master new skills after joining the Northern Jaegers and doesn't mind bending her orders to complete an assignment. Based on the promo image, she fights with dual blades and per the Story page her main motivations for joining the jaegers was to protect her home and distinguish herself from her grandfather Vlad. She and her squad are ordered to investigate threatening Erebonian movements and their rumored 'hero'. Voiced by Koichi Makoto.

Martin S. Robinson: A veteran jaeger, looks unreliable but is actually quite perceptive, acts as a mediator in the squad and takes responsibility for the others. Due to his background he has a soft spot for people in weak situations and hates when the strong abuse their power. He also gets along well with kids. He might be a barehanded fighter from the trailer but it's hard to tell. Voiced by Nakamura Yuuichi.

Iseria Frost: She has an attitude of 'It's no fun if I'm not having fun and doing what I want' and at first glimpse doesn't seem very jaeger-like, but she's actually the most serious about the mission and is an excellent sniper. She worries a great deal about North Ambria's future. Voiced by Sarah Emi Bridcutt.

Talion Drake: A straightforward man who takes his assignments seriously. He worries about others a lot and people try to take advantage of him because of that. With his strong physique, he throws himself into melee combat with relish. Fights with one of those ginormous swords from CS3. Voiced by Ono Yuuki.

Oh, and based on the main image and the end of the trailer, the tagline for the series is 'An era when new heroes are born'.

A new trailer just released! There may be minor or implicit Trails of Cold Steel II and III spoilers in it so I'll spoiler tag it just to be safe:

The first few seconds of the trailer almost made me think this was a Valkyria Chronicles anime. Looks promising, though knowing anything related to Cold Steel and having the main protagonist being a girl makes me fear she'll be added to Rean's harem in some way 🙄 

So with another trailer having dropped not too long ago (didn't realize it was coming out so soon), I am interested in why they chose this setting and part of the timeline for an anime. My best guess is it gives them a lot of creative leeway and instead of a game they can do a small anime series to give fans who are interested a further look into what happened in North Ambria. Hopefully this means that those who aren't interested don't have to watch to be able to enjoy the trails series going forward. 

The series' focus has shifted eastwards so it's unlikely that the events of the anime (all the way at the extreme northwest end of the continent, about three and a half years before the 'present') will be required to understand anything that happens later on. I imagine we'll get a pretty quick indication of the degree to which they're tying things into the plot, because if Lavian's grandfather was involved in what we learned about North Ambria in Kuro, that'll be a sign that the writing is paying attention to the most recent developments. And if they're doing that, getting some brief nods to Northern War events or characters in future games isn't out of the question.

And yeah, I imagine that a big motivation for focusing on the campaign is that it's something the games themselves don't cover in depth and with the new eastward focus it's extremely unlikely we'll ever get a chance to see North Ambria directly in the games, so setting a series there kills several birds with one stone.

Interesting to hear that it's also getting a dub. Hopefully they get the games' VAs for whatever returning characters there are.

Well, episode 1's out now and it's hard to really say much yet. Pretty much just set up, really. Visually it looks about what I was expecting, so it's pretty middling on that front. One Punch Man (season 1) this ain't. Obviously.

I wasn't too encouraged by one of the trailers that referred to Osborne as "Prime Minister," but this episode had no outstanding inconsistencies that I noticed, which was nice. I guess we'll see what happens when it comes to the various made up terminology.

It was kind of funny to have the old lady exposition dump about North Ambria to people who would obviously know about the salt pale and all that, but I guess you've gotta that info to the potentially uninformed audience somehow!

Anyone here been keeping up with the show? If so, how well do you like it? I know Trails, while getting more popular is a still relatively niche. Still, it's weird how little I see of it pop up anywhere.